Landslides

"The causes of landslides are not a mystery to mankind. Layers of rock and soil such that rain running along a clay or rock layer can create a slippery surface for the weight of the layers above it is a common cause. A rock jumble from previous mountain building, broken or fractured rock easily dislodged. We have stated that the earthquakes man experiences between the periodic passages of Planet X can be considered aftershocks from the last passage, and this is true of landslides also. Mountain building rumples the landscape, so the land is not flat but has steep ravines and hill sides. Older mountain ranges are recognized for their rounded or smoothed appearance, because of frequent landslides distributing the rubble.

"As we approach another passage, another Pole Shift, the pace of landslides has picked up. Why would this be? Plates under pressure will put pressure on regions that contain rumpled hillsides and deep ravines, as these give more readily than strictly flat land, thus act as a weak link. In addition, due to the wobble, the weather has gotten more extreme, with drought and deluge increasing in extremes. Dry ground, suddenly flooded with rainwater needing to seek its level as runoff, will create internal water slides between the rock and soil layers that constitute the rumpled hillsides. Is there an early warning system that mankind could use? The trembles that soil about to slide emits could be detected, yes. These are not earthquakes, and have their own frequency. "

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Deadly Landslides in Taiwan Following 6.5 Quake (June 2) Although sparse information is currently available, above are images of some of the landslides which occurred in several locations following today's severe quake.

A rockslide near the magnitude-6.3 quake's epicentre killed one person driving a car on a mountain road in Mountain Ali in the southern part of the island.

Rockslides at the scenic mountainous area near the epicentre also injured several people.

Landslide evacuates nearly 100 in Wellington - June 1

A massive landslide in Wellington has swept away backyards and left houses teetering on a cliff edge.

At least 90 people in the suburbs of Kingston and Berhampore were evacuated early this morning when a slip about 40 metres wide by 100 metres long came away from under houses in Priscilla Crescent.

Emergency services were called to the slip in Priscilla Crescent shortly before 5am this morning.

"The hill just slipped away and the rumbling and cracking sound of all the trees lasted for about a minute," one resident says.

"I thought it was a fire, but I looked outside, I couldn't see any flames but I could see the trees moving on the hill and the whole bank was slipping down the hill… The whole house was shaking and everything."

Around eight people have been taken to a Civil Defence center in Newtown. The majority of those evacuated are staying with friends or family.

A burst water main has been fingered as the cause of the slip, but council authorities have not confirmed this yet.

"There's still quite a bit of water coming out of the bank at this point in time which we are unable to establish where that's coming from," says Wellington senior sergeant Shannon Clifford.

Further minor slips have occurred over the morning, and with two houses on the edged of the newly-created precipice it is likely residents will be kept away for a while.

"While we were evacuating people further landslides occurred, whole pohutakawa trees were coming down in that landslide whilst we were pulling people out of their houses," says Mr Clifford.

The first is the global distribution of large dams – this is from the UN GrandD database, which provides information of large dams worldwide, mapped onto a global digital elevation model using ArcMap:

So each red dot here is a large dam (defined as having a storage capacity of greater than 0.1 cubic kilometres). The interesting thing here is the paucity of large dams in and around the Himalayan chain (and indeed the Andes). As I have shown before, the Himalayas are really the global epicentre for landslide activity, so this is the environment that requires the highest level of care with respect to landslide problems. The map below homes in on the Himalayas, again with a DEM as the backdrop:

The circles with dots in the centre are locations in which my database indicates there have been fatality-inducing landslides associated with large dams in the last ten years. These are mostly landslides at dam construction sites or landslides that have impacted the camps housing employees associated with dam construction or operation.

There are a surprising number of landslides given the numbers of dams in this part of the world.

One child missing, one killed in Minnesota field trip landslide

Jim Mone / AP

Rescue personnel gather near an entrance to Lilydale Regional Park above the Mississippi River during a suspension of search efforts to find a fourth child missing after a landslide swept over a group of children on a fourth grade field trip Wednesday, May 22, 2013, in St. Paul, Minn.

By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News

Authorities said they would continue their search Thursday for a Minnesota child who remained missing after a gravel slide swept several children on a school fossil-hunting trip into a pit, killing one.

The fourth-graders from a St. Louis Park elementary school were hiking in Lilydale Regional Park on Wednesday when a steep slope soaked by rain gave way, authorities have said. Two trapped children were dug out by firefighters who clawed away gravel with their hands and shovels, they said.

“It appears they were walking along and the ground, after the rain we’ve had, was so soft and it gave way and they fell into what became a hole and the earth came on top of them,” St. Paul Fire Marshal Steve Zaccard said at a news conference, according to NBC News affiliate KARE.

Scott Takushi / AP

An emergency worker attends to a person on a stretcher, being evacuated out of a rockslide site by helicopter, on the West Side of St. Paul, Wednesday, May 22, 2013.

One of the children pulled from the pit later died, and has not yet been identified by authorities.

“The slide had fallen down on top of them," Zaccard said. “One was partially buried, one was completely buried.”

The search for the missing student was suspended overnight as rescuers battled worsening conditions.

“Water is flowing right into the hole making it extremely dangerous for rescuers to work anymore,” Zaccard said. “We are working with our partners in Parks and Public Works to make the scene safe for what’s become a recovery effort for what might be a fourth victim.”

A man who identified himself as the missing child’s uncle said the student “liked geology,” according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.

“Thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the children and to our first responders who continue to deal with the situation as it develops,” said St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman.

Alberta Highway Near Peace River Collapses (May 18) Highway 744, Judah Hill road just south of Peace River has been closed due to a collapse.

Alberta Transportation discovered the slide during a routine inspection of the area and was in the process of forging a detour when the rest of the road collapsed shortly after midnight May 18. The area was deemed hazardous and the entire road remains blocked off.

Traffic entering and exiting the Town of Peace River via Highway 744 is detoured to Highway 2 and Highway 683. Due to the location and severity of the slide, the length of time the road closure will be in effect is unknown.

La Prairie Works Inc., the Alberta Transportation contractor responsible for the maintenance of the highway in the area, continues to closely monitor the slide’s activity.

“Until we get that initial assessment done we really don’t know what we’re looking at," according to Acting Operations Manager Mae Stewart.

Landslides surge in Western North Carolina

Pressure builds for regulations

FRANKLIN — It took about a month for the small crack in front of Mike Boggan's mountainside home to turn into a foot-high drop off.

A county inspector told him not to worry about it at first. Today his house stands condemned and Boggan is living with friends, the latest victim in a string of landslides across Western North Carolina.

In the last six months, landslides, mudslides and rock slides in WNC and east Tennessee have destroyed parts of three major highways and damaged at least five houses, Boggan's included.

Governments in both states are spending nearly $20 million to repair the damage, with the biggest expense being the rockslide on Interstate 40. Repair work on that stretch near the Tennessee line should be done this month.

The increase comes during one of the wettest years on record and during one of the hardest winters.

It also comes as local and state lawmakers feel increasing pressure to develop regulations for building on mountainsides.

Worried neighbors

Boggan is not the only one on his street who doesn't know what to do.

Varshana McGaughey and her husband built their home nearby two years ago and worry about the ground's stability.

"My concern is about the stability of the whole mountain," she said, "and what will happen two months down the road or two years down the road."

A slow-moving landslide of about 5 acres made living in Boggan's house too dangerous .

McGaughey hasn't seen problems as severe, although part of her lot and a corner of her driveway did sink recently. It's being repaired with compacted fill dirt on her builder's advice. The cause hasn't been determined.

State geologists have looked at Boggan's property and surveyed land being cleared nearby for the Craftsman's Village development, which was to have homes and shops.

The mountain's soil is decomposed bedrock so soft it can be removed with a hand trowel, said Rick Wooten, a senior geologist with the N.C. Geological Survey.

"It has the worst of both worlds," he said. "It has the plane of weakness it inherited from the bedrock, but the mass has weathered to the point where it's lost the strength of what it had."

Couple Swept Out to Sea By "Freak" Alaskan Landslide (May 12) Kevin Knox and Maggie Gallin are scraped, bruised and mourning the loss of their border collie mix dog, Luna, after getting swept into the ocean by a landslide while visiting a U.S. Forest Service public use cabin near Redoubt Lake. They returned to the area, about 15 miles southeast of Sitka, Tuesday to look for the dog, but don’t believe their pet survived. The pair had been camping at the cabin over the weekend, before a massive piece of the mountain above them gave way Sunday morning, sending trees, dirt, and debris cascading down the steep slope above them.

"We heard some rocks falling (Saturday) night," loud enough to "echo throughout the forest, waking us up at one point," Knox said. Since the sounds seemed to be coming from so far away, the couple decided to go back to bed.

“I was worried, but never thought anything could get all the way down to us, because there were so many trees between us and the top of the mountain,” Knox said.

The overnight rock falls were just a prelude to what was in store. The next morning, after rowing out to scout the mountainside and do some fishing, Knox stood on the shoreline, making a video of the boulders as they came crashing down from a peak about 4,000 feet above him. Gallin was inside the small cabin, packing up to meet the plane later that day.

And that's about the time a swath of mountain, later estimated to be about 200 yards squared, broke loose.

"I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The entire mountain was moving," Knox said.

He began yelling for his girlfriend to get out of the cabin. "Run, just run, I told her."

He joined her and with their dog they ran as fast as they could to try and sidestep the trees, debris and mountainside. Instead they were forced into the water, sucked in and pushed under while 20-foot-tall rocks came to rest just feet away from crushing them.

“We popped up a few feet from shore; I couldn’t believe what had just happened," Knox said. "We were still alive.

"It was lucky timing, because if we had been inside the cabin when it hit, we wouldn’t have stood a chance,” Knox said.

After pulling themselves to shore, Knox and Gallin noticed their 11 year old border collie, Luna, was missing. Knox said they'd last seen her before going under water.

From the air, the scene looked horrific. The entire area where the cabin used to be was buried under debris, including large old-growth spruce trees that were dragged down the mountain during the slide. Mark Hackett, a pilot for Harris Air in Sitka, was scheduled to pick up Knox and Gallin Sunday afternoon.

“When I flew over the area, I couldn’t quite comprehend what I was seeing. I think my exact thought was just, 'oh shit,'" he said.

Since Knox and Gallin had hiked to the Redoubt Lake cabin from Salmon Lake, about 5 miles away, Hackett, at first, said he wasn't sure if the couple had been caught up in the slide.

"I circled the area a few times trying to get my bearings, and that’s when I saw Kevin (Knox) waving his coat in the air," Hackett said. After landing near shore, Hackett opened the plane’s door and yelled for the couple to get in.

"When I saw their eyes, I could tell that they were traumatized," Hackett said.

Hackett flew Knox and Gallin back to Sitka to be checked out by a doctor. Knox says he is sore, with some bruises and scrapes on his back, but that Gallin was more banged up.

"She has a black eye, swollen nose and is very sore," Knox said. But the physical damage is the least of the injuries suffered by the couple. The loss of Luna, a happy-go-lucky dog Knox adopted 10 years ago, has devastated them. And then there are the lasting emotional effects of being swept up in a massive landslide.

"I woke up this morning, reliving what had happened, and all I could think is: 'I have no idea why I am still alive,'" Knox said. A lifelong resident of Sitka, and avid outdoorsman, Knox wonders if his sense of safety in the wilderness has vanished. "You think, OK, I am prepared for what may happen, like a bear encounter, or a fall, but you can’t prepare for something like this,” Knox said by phone after returning from the scene Tuesday afternoon."

The Redoubt Lake cabin is 40 to 50 yards old, according to Forest Service Sitka Area District Ranger Perry Edwards. It is popular enough that before the landslide, the small, one-room cabin was scheduled to be updated and rebuilt. That’s unlikely now as the land it once occupied has been transformed into a pile of tangled trees, rocks, and mud. But since it was at the base of a steep slope, in an area where rockslides are not uncommon, should that location have been selected in the first place?

Edwards doesn’t have a problem with it. “Judging by the old-growth forest on the mountainside, and the type of trees there, it is highly likely that a slide of this magnitude hasn’t happened near there for at least 300 to 400 years,” Edwards said. He noted he’s never heard concerns about the cabin’s location.

Redoubt Lake is home to a strong run of sockeye salmon -- a major source of food for Sitka’s fishermen. The slide has blocked the entrance to the lake from the ocean. The Sitka Ranger’s office thinks there is enough water movement to clear a path for migrating salmon – expected to push up the area in mid-July.

“If it doesn’t, we will consider blasting open a channel,” Edwards said.

Recovering in Sitka, Kevin Knox said he isn’t sure if he and Gallin consider themselves lucky -- because they survived what probably should have killed them, or unlucky -- because they got caught up in it in the first place.

"It was an absolute fluke," Knox said, "everything from it happening in the first place, to surviving the slide."